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Hey Marketing Bestie,

Us marketers sure can learn a lot from our Marketing fore-fathers and fore-mothers.

The greatest marketing campaigns in history deserve to be etched in HTML stone.

Welcome to Marketing Classics 411, a new kind of ancient history.

In place of hieroglyphs, expect to decipher the campaigns of yesteryear.

Professor Millennial teaches every Tuesday (remotely), via electronic mail.

Class is now in session.

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BAD TASTE IS GOOD BUSINESS

Tipsy Elves and the Brand Power of Committing to the Bit

It’s 2011.

“Rolling in the Deep” is blasting on the radio.

People still check in on Foursquare.

Still dump 107 photos in Facebook albums called “XMAS RAGER”

And a lawyer moonlighting as an SEO consultant notices Google keeps lighting up with a very specific search term: “Ugly Christmas sweater”

It spiked bigger every December, like festive clockwork.

He calls his friend, a dentist moonlighting as a designer, and they start putting together some ideas. The tackier…the better.

It was a creative side project, built for people who love to party.

In 2 years, that big joke turned into $3M in revenue.
In 2023, lifetime sales crossed $317M.

This is the story of how a having a strong brand voice, knowing your audience, and committing to the bit can turn a joke into a growth machine.

This is the story of….Tipsy Elves.

SANTA'S LITTLE GROWTH HACKERS

At first glance, Tipsy Elves looks like a joke.

That's because, well, it kind of is.

But underneath all the outfits that’ll get you uninvited from Nana’s Christmas party, you’ll see Marketing fundamentals worth copying.

If you’ve ever wondered how to turn a meme into a resilient brand, how to “own” a whole season, or how to design products and campaigns that basically guarantee their own UGC, this one is for you.

Strap on your jingle bells and grab your NSFW knitwear, Marketing Besties. This one’s gonna get festive.

THE NIGHT BEFORE PRODUCT-MARKET FIT

In 2011, irony ruled.

Maybe the best example of this trend was the rise of “Ugly Christmas Sweater Parties,” especially on college campuses.

Enter: Evan Mendelsohn, an unhappy corporate lawyer who’d taught himself SEO and Digital Marketing.

While on an SEO gig, Evan noticed “ugly Christmas sweaters” and other related terms surged every Q4 in Google trends.

To Evan, this signaled demand, and an opportunity:

Party culture was driving people to outdo each other - helped along by a fledgling social media platform called Instagram. Plus, you know…SantaCon.
The supply of ugly sweaters was finite, mostly limited to the secondhand market, or small releases of cheaply-made novelty sweaters from mass retailers.

Evan called his old college frat brother Nick Morton: a dentist who dabbled in design.

The pitch: “what if we made sweaters that could get people uninvited from the family gathering?” They ran with it.

They launched on Shopify with just 10 SKUs, and PG-13-rated PDPs.

The designs: Traditional patterns that weren’t so traditional the closer you looked.

Santa peeing in the snow to spell out “Merry Christmas.” Snowmen with 1 too many carrots. That kind of thing.

It was laser-focused on their party-hard market.

Intentionally tacky, but made with better quality than those cheap novelty sweaters.

They were also basically made for sharing on social.

Especially on a brand new little app called Instagram.

Tipsy Elves on IG in December 2012 (via The Hustle/Instagram)

Tipsy Elves was born because Nick & Evan spotted a pattern early, matched it to an underserved niche, and built their unique brand on top.

They sold out their first run of 5k in less than 2 weeks.

FROM MEME TO MARKETING ENGINE

Tipsy Elves made ~$1.35M in their first 2 years.

Nearly all online, from Shopify and Amazon.

Brand voice & creative were their moat.

(Yes, meme-core designs featuring naughty Santas are a brand voice.)

Their manifesto: "make the most outrageous clothes known to mankind in order to make your life more fun."

Their designs ranged from “nice” to “extra naughty,” to appeal to people at different comfort levels, without losing their core spirit.

They also optimized and iterated on their site until it was #1 for the most common search terms around “ugly Christmas sweaters.”

Press started showing up.

The unapologetic vibe + differentiated quality let Tipsy Elves become owners of the emerging category, FAST.

They were used as the prime example of the ugly sweater boom in every trend report, from their alma mater magazine, all the way to GQ.

Their specific focus made their stockings overflow with earned media.

SLEIGHING SHARKS IN A FESTIVE ONESIE

Then, Shark Tank came knocking.

Evan and Nick had practiced their pitch.

They had proof-of-concept that Tipsy Elves was more than a passing fad.

They’d tapped their friends as models for their new designs.

They were ready.

Hey Sharks…wanna party? (Image via sharktankblog.com)

They made a deal for $100k in investment.

The investment, and the boost from the show, helped them pull in $3M in sales the next year.

They doubled down on their momentum to branch out from Christmas.

They brought in Hanukkah sweaters. Patriotic lines. Halloween costumes and onesies. Even holiday sweaters for specific colleges.

Avalanches of new SKUs.

But all of them still catered to the market they started with.

Wait…is there a Bearcats one? Asking for a friend.

This is a lesson in “riding the wave” (the sleigh?):

Take your big earned-media moments and capital - sometimes literal capital - to make your moat even bigger.

For Tipsy Elves, that meant deepening their grip on the holiday season, but also building in more “spikes” throughout the year to reduce risk and keep the brand alive through the whole calendar.

It was party time, 24/7/365.

Soon, Tipsy Elves was officially one of the most successful investments in the history of Shark Tank.

PUT IT IN PRACTICE

Tipsy Elves found an emerging pattern that turned seasonality into a structural advantage. Then, they created a strong POV they could pair with social-first tactics.

Here’s your homework:

1️⃣. Find 1 cultural behavior your brand is already near. It might be a niche ritual, a party “format,” even a meme. It should be the answer to the question: on what repeatable occasions do our products really shine?

2️⃣. List out concrete product + copy decisions. These should be designed to make YOUR brand the “obvious example” reporters and creators can cite when they cover this behavior. Think Liquid Death + concerts, Glossier + the “shelfie,” or Dude Wipes + going to the bathroom.

3️⃣. Design 1 hyper-seasonal campaign that showcases your brand voice & core product promise in this new context.

This is the exact process Tipsy Elves used when they expanded from Christmas/Hanukkah to St. Patrick’s, July 4th, etc.

IT'S A (PAJAMA) PARTY

Like I said, it was 24/7/365 party time………until 2020.

The pandemic hit. Party-based demand collapsed overnight.

After 2 straight months of losses, Tipsy Elves made a strategic pivot into the comfy sector.

Loungewear. Pajamas. Onesies.

Even ski suits (social-distancing-friendly hobby.)

Same outrageous clothes, now made for home-bound fun.

They shifted their Marketing to match: instead of office parties and crowded beer pong tables, their creative was quarantine-friendly at-home photoshoots.

Quarantine, Tipsy Elves style.

The message from this?

That even stuck at home, you could be festive.

It landed at a time when people really needed a little extra holiday cheer.

Tipsy Elves wasn't the only brand pivoting to loungewear.

But their consistent, bold brand identity set them apart.

And the fact that they were ecommerce natives meant they were already ahead.

By the end of the year, Tipsy Elves had grown sales 30% and become the fastest-growing DTC company, according to Similar Web.

Bringing novelty and positivity to a monotonous and scary time was good business, too: they made more sales in 2020 than they did in 2019.

It was new context, but the same emotional benefit. Still on-brand.

These days, you can find all kinds of things at Tipsy Elves.

Ski suits, golf outfits, Halloween costumes, patriotic rompers.

As of this year, even licensed Pizza Hut onesies.

Their manifesto is still strong. They know who they're making clothes for...and who they aren't.

Image from tipsyelves.com's "About Us"

Tipsy Elves is bigger than ever.

They did it by pairing 1 sharp insight with an outrageous POV, and focusing on the brand niche fundamentals, so the right people could find them.

They did it...by doubling down on the joke.

MARKETING CHEAT SHEET (WHAT TO LEARN FROM THIS STORY):

1️⃣. Search + culture = opportunity scanner

Tipsy Elves started with cold search data and hot cultural behavior (parties, duh). The combo revealed a high-intent, under-served space.

2️⃣. Brand voice + product POV = growth levers.

Being early wasn’t their only advantage. Differentiation came from outrageous-but-quality product, naming, and visuals that were unmistakably THEIRS.

3️⃣. Seasonality as a system, not a constraint.

Q4 is still their main tentpole, but Tipsy Elves successfully branched out into other holidays and category extensions like onesies and ski clothes that made them more resilient and ready for 2020.

4️⃣. Design for participation, not just purchase.

Tipsy Elves engineered their products to see and be seen. They shined in group photos, parties, and social. Their design choices became their self-sustaining Marketing.

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IN A MEME